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Near Earth Asteroid 'Florence' Makes a Close Pass (space.com)
kbahey writes: A big, bright, near-Earth asteroid, known as 3122 Florence, made a safe fly by Friday night. Florence is classified as a Potentially Hazardous Object. At its closest, it was about 7 million km (4.4 million miles) away from earth. It is still visible in amateur telescopes over the next few days where it would be seen to move over several minutes against the background stars. It can be located using this map. According to NASA officials, the asteroid hasn't been this close to Earth since 1890, and it won't be this close again until 2500. "Asteroid 3122 Florence was discovered in 1981 by astronomer Schelte 'Bobby' Bus at the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia," reports Space.com. "The asteroid is named in honor of Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), who pioneered modern nursing, NASA officials said in a separate statement."
Congratulations!
This, at least sounds like news for nerds although I understand that motto is gone.
Thank you,
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
An asteroid buzzed the Earth at 50,000 miles away last year.
https://www.space.com/33891-newfound-asteroid-buzzes-earth-2016-qa2.html
If this asteroid is classified as a "Potentially Hazardous Object", then why is it being reported two days *AFTER* the pass?
"A big, bright, near-Earth asteroid, known as 3122 Florence, made a safe fly by Friday night."
So glad we didn't damage it. Those things can be expensive!
Let's honor a woman who saved many lives by naming a rock big enough to cause a mass extinction event after her!
#DeleteChrome
was my first thought.
The asteroid is named in honor of Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), who pioneered modern nursing
Indeed, Nightingale is described as "a true pioneer in the graphical representation of statistics", and is credited with developing a form of the pie chart now known as the polar area diagram,[53] or occasionally the Nightingale rose diagram...
The moon is 384K km away. This was over 20x further away.
I wish we had been warned. Then I could have spent lots of time not worrying about it in the least.
5km, small end of the range of the suspected dino killer (5-15km).
Here are two composite photos showing the asteroid moving against the background stars: Florence 1 and Florence 2.
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it's 550 Earth diameters away!!!! Only a ninny bureaucrat with too much time on her hands would classify that as "potentially hazardous".
The phrase "potentially hazardous" does not mean that it will be hazardous on this particular pass. It means that it is in a orbit that makes repeated close passes near Earth, so it potentially may be hazardous on a future pass.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
If this asteroid is classified as a "Potentially Hazardous Object", then why is it being reported two days *AFTER* the pass?
it is a potentially hazardous object because it is in a orbit that makes repeated close passes near Earth, and therefore it may intersect the Earth's orbit at some time in the future (beyond the time frame in which we can make exact predictions, due to chaos). It is potentially hazardous.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The phrase "potentially hazardous" does not mean that it will be hazardous on this particular pass. It means that it is in a orbit that makes repeated close passes near Earth, so it potentially may be hazardous on a future pass.
the asteroid hasn't been this close to Earth since 1890, and it won't be this close again until 2500. How much closer will it be 483 years from now? We've got a lot more shit to worry about than this...
That's the definition of the word. The word is not defined as "objects to panic about right now."
If you don't want to worry about a potentially hazardous object, you don't have to. That does not mean it is not potentially hazardous. It just means you're not worrying about it.
More detailed definition here: https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/about/neo_groups.html
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
So, a "Potentially Hazardous Object" (Wikipedia says "3122 Florence" is possibly "large enough to create serious damage were it to impact") is named "in honor of Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), who pioneered modern nursing" (from NASA statement quoted in the summary).
The idea of the asteroid version of the "Lady with the Lamp" (absolute magnitude H=22), making her rounds (every 859 days, with an eccentricity of 0.42), might one day *cause* millions of people to be killed or wounded, is simply begging the cosmos to make the irony happen.
However, I don't think this potentially embarrassing naming was intentional (e.g., dark humor inspired by knowledge of the relatively elevated risk of devastating collision). The guy who cataloged this asteroid had already cataloged many other asteroids, giving them the names of famous figures, and probably did not give the name much thought beyond the idea of "honoring" the great people of history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schelte_J._Bus
Also, why an absolute magnitude of 22.0 or greater? What about the big, dark iron asteroid with an H of 23 who's MOID is 10^-5 au?
Because absolute magnitudes can be measured as soon as an asteroid is found, when an asteroid is far away, while what an asteroid is made of, and what its color is, cannot.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
For comparison, the current figures from the MPC are
So, on a monthly basis, we're acquiring data at a rate comparable to the several hundred years of astronomy before 1981.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
We don't really consider an asteroid "found" until there are more two observations; otherwise you don't where it is.
However measuring it's colour (a hint to composition) and taking a reflection spectrum (a better hint to composition and classification) can theoretically take place in the first observation run (if your imager system can switch between imaging and spectroscopy without significant reconstruction).
"theoretically" maybe. Practically: no. You simply need a lot more photons to do spectroscopy than you need to just see something is there. You can only get spectra from astwroids that are reasonably bright, which, for asteroids this tiny, means reasonably close.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
(previous observations)
Found something serendipitously in target field that's not in DSS/ 2MASS/ SIMBAD - looks like it may be an asteroid. 10 shots for positional measurement - first 3 in full bandwidth, 3 with B filter, 3 with V filter, check shot. Use exposure-doubling protocol if filtered views below detection limit.
(continue planned observing run)
[Next night] Continue programme as per booked telescope time.
Insert sequence of shots to refine positional data, or longer shots to improve SNR. Or if PI/ observatory manager thinks it's worthwhile, more time (from T.O.O. time budget?) for spectroscopy.
Return to scheduled observations.
I'm not an astronomer, but writing optimised work instructions is routine. You plan for these things, so that your technicians have a procedure for acquiring data while they're punting the question of deviating from the schedule upstairs (to you). When you're running machines with a crew of 200 and costing around $100,000/ hour you don't get to sit in the control seat again if you don't have efficient use of expensive time.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"